Patterns of devotion and traces of art : the diplomatic journey of Queen Elizabeth Piast to Italy in 1343–1344

This article focuses on the journey the Hungarian Dowager Queen Elizabeth Piast undertook in 1343–1344 to the Italian Peninsula in order to bolster the claims of her son, Prince Andrew, to the Neapolitan throne. Contrary to the agreement concluded a decade earlier between King Charles I of Hungary and King Robert of Naples, Andrew's wife, Queen Joanna I, was still the sole ruler. In addition to its obvious diplomatic purpose, the trip also represented an occasion for Queen Elizabeth to express her devotion at the shrines of the Holy Apostles in Rome and St Nicholas in Bari, making generous donations in money and precious objects to these cult centers. By examining a series of written records including chroniclers' accounts and inventories of the treasuries of St Peter's and St Nicholas' Basilicas, and confronting them with the surviving visual evidence, the author notices that the Árpádian/Angevin dynastic saints (St Stephen, St Emeric, St Ladislas, St Elizabeth, and Blessed Margaret) played a significant role during these devotional trips; Queen Elizabeth donated or commissioned works of art with their image. Consequently, the dynastic saints of home were present abroad during their supporters' pilgrimage to the cult centers of other saints, and this association increased the prestige of both the dynastic saints and those promoting the cult.